Cameron opens new front as hustings get under way

David Cameron will open up a new front in the battle for the Tory leadership as he attempts to consolidate his position as frontrunner at the first of a series of hustings today.

Buoyed by pledges of support yesterday from the former leader William Hague and the defeated candidate Liam Fox - who are both backing him despite sharing David Davis's position on the right of the party - he will stress to members that 109 of the party's 198 MPs now want to see him as leader.

"What he is really focusing on is uniting the party behind his agenda of change," said an aide to Mr Cameron.

Mr Davis faces a struggle to dislodge his younger rival when the two men appear together in front of Tory members in Leicester and Solihull. While the 250,000 Conservatives eligible to vote need not return their ballot papers until December 5, those who have already done so appear to have expressed a clear preference for Mr Cameron.

A poll in the Daily Telegraph at the weekend found that 68% of those who had returned their votes had backed the shadow education secretary.

But Damian Green, one of Mr Davis's closest allies, said: "There is no sense at all that the contest is over. Fewer people have voted at this stage than had done so in the last contest, which suggests a lot of people have been waiting for the hustings."

He added that the shadow home secretary would continue to emphasise substance, not style, over the coming fortnight, as the two men address Tories around the country.

Mr Cameron sought to distance himself from "Tory Blair" comparisons which might prove unpopular with diehard Conservatives by denouncing the prime minister as "belligerent, partisan and macho" in an article for the Sunday Telegraph.

But in an interview on the BBC's Politics Show, he argued that many of Mr Blair's controversial proposals for reform were good for the country, citing the government's plans to open more city academies and to reform incapacity benefit.